A Ghost Story
by Chaimera
Summary: ...of course, you will hear the ghosts, always a room away."


**Disclaimer**: Not Mine!

**Authors Notes**: I don't know what it is, but this fandom has made me all prolific. But you know what they say, quality not quantity. I hope the quality of this is up to your discerning standards. I know the Doctor Who reference is not quite what one might call subtle, but I'm all excited for Saturday.

The quotes from the beginning and end are from a Neil Gaiman short called _The Hidden Chamber_. It can be found in his short story anthology _Fragile Things_ or in _Outsiders_, another anthology edited by Nancy Holder and Nancy Kilpatrick.

Don't forget to feed the author.

**A Ghost Story**

"_While you are here, of course, you will hear the ghosts, always a room away,_

_And you may wake beside me in the night, _

_Knowing that there's a space without a door,_

_Knowing that there's a place that's locked but isn't there._

_Hearing them scuffle, echo, thump and pound_."

It was Nina who found it, pint-sized P.I that she was, but ultimately it was luck. They had put all their energy into finding a way to get her back, over a year, and when all had seemed lost, Nina had found the house. It was one of those things that could barely be believed. They only reason they gave it even a second look was because they were things that could barely be believed.

It was a short passage in an old book that had brought the house to Nina's attention. It simply read "This is where souls go to die."

It was called Wester Drumlins and it was haunted. It was haunted in a way that even they didn't think possible. A normal person walked into Wester Drumlins and they wanted to leave, driven out by the overwhelming feeling of despair that seemed to bleed from the walls, the stone angels that dotted the surrounding gardens exuding sorrow and not comfort. To a normal person it was a dark, dank and unsettling place. To someone who was a bit more… unusual… shall we say, the walls didn't bleed, they screamed.

Further research revealed, once you waded through crazy people and fake psychics, that the house was an in-between kind of place. Neither here, nor there, it sat empty and dark and yet full of the cries of lost souls.

No one lived there. It is perhaps, not possible for any one person, normal or not, to stay in that house and not lose some of their mind. It had been vacant for decades, passed from owner to owner, never lived in, but never knocked down either. Something about the place, the wrongness of it, defied even the local planning authorities, who eventually declared it a listed building, so they would never have to return. Even local children, with dares and rocks that go through windows didn't go near it.

So when the three friends approached the front door, navigating their way down the winding and over grown drive way, flanked by stone angles with hidden faces, they didn't truly know what to expect.

The door swung open with a creek, the kind of creek that doors in haunted houses tend to make. Mitchell flinched and Nina cowered into George's side, while he clenched his jaw, trying not to flinch as his friend had done. This was the place that souls came to die.

To a normal person, the house, as unsettling as it was, was as quiet as the dead, if you will excuse the pun. To these three rather more unusual individuals, they were confronted a cacophony of sound. Knocks and raps, footsteps and banging doors, screeches and moans, screams and whimpers.

Though nothing stirred and all was still, they could hear them, behind the walls, clawing and clutching and scratching. This was not a place for souls at rest, this was a place for souls who were not where they wanted to be.

As the three walked through the house, the whispers that sounded like screams became nearly unbearable. Nina pressed her hands over her ears and pressed herself more firmly into George's side.

The groans of the floorboards under their feet were drowned out by the groans that weren't really there. Everything about this house, its silence and its noise, was wrong.

Then they found it. At the top of the second flight of stairs was a corridor that seemed to stretch far beyond the limits of the house. On each side of it, the walls were lined with doors. Few people had been this far into the house having been driven away long before, but there they stood.

Mitchell glanced at his friends and looked at George. "Get her out of here. I'll do it."

George nodded and ushered the woman still pressed into his side down the stairs and out the door. As they hurried by the angels George hoped his friend would be able to last long enough. He glanced back before picking up his pace, the voices still calling to them from the open front door.

Mitchell squared his shoulders and began to walk down the seemingly endless passageway. He examined each door closely before moving on, doing his best to ignore the scratching and begging that came from the other side. He stopped suddenly in front of one non-descript door. It was white with silver fixtures, nothing like what he had been looking for but he could feel it, he could feel _her_.

Swiftly and without any dramatic pause that one would expect in a ghost story, he pulled the door open. Inside was a closet, at most perhaps a meter square and curled in one corner was a woman. She looked up at him, squinting at the sudden light, and gave a weak smile.

"You're here."

Her voice was a prayer, but the sound of it caused the knocking and scratching and moaning and screaming to become louder. She placed her head back on her knees, curling her arms around her head in protest.

He swept her up, holding her close and kicking the door closed with such force that the frame shook. Moving swiftly through the house, they left, the front door creaking as it fell closed behind them though neither of them had touched it.

As he carried her down the over grown drive the angles watched on, their faces wrathful and unhidden but neither noticed.

When they reached the car the other two ran towards them and she squirmed out of his arms, laughing as George engulfed her in a hug.

"Annie. We got you back."

The ghost smiled at her friends and all piled into a car that looked as if it were to break down at any moment.

"Take me home."

So the four of them drove away from Wester Drumlins, all of them doing their best to put the house out of their minds. And they did.

The house, however, is still there, sitting silent and wrong, seeming empty but so very full, surrounded by stone figures who look peaceful in their horrible duty.

"_Do not fear the ghosts in this house; they are the least of your worries."_


End file.
